Bridge over our Creek
Kelly and I live on some beautiful land, with a peaceful, small creek running through it. We enjoy the scenery very much, but the creek does create a problem when we want to get anything to the west half of our land. So, after a lot of planning and a lot of hard work, we’ve built a bridge over our creek along the south edge of our property!
The problem of getting across could probably have been solved much more simply with other methods, but after all is said and done, I think we’ve created a nice addition to the area. I did a lot of research on various bridge designs, and created countless computer models of various ideas, but this is the one I finally decided upon and successfully implemented.
The bridge uses an adaptation of a Pratt truss design, and measures 36 feet end to end with a 34 feet long by about 9 feet wide road surface. I started thinking it would be a 1 month project, but I grossly underestimated the work involved. Nonetheless, 1 year, 300 bolts, 208 joist hangars, 2080 nails, 620 deck screws, and many hours later, we have a completed bridge and a landscaping feature to be proud of.
Here are the final revised plans I designed, using SketchUp.
Check out the rest of the pictures from the construction process here.
Sean says:
New Bridge Pics Please
August 5, 2008, 2:38 pmPaul Vincent Craven says:
Great looking bridge! You and Kelly did a great job.
June 5, 2009, 8:57 amGreg Gorham says:
Would something like this be adaptable for a vehicle crossing a river/creek/driveway? Maybe the UPS truck could not use it, but a passenger vehicle?
May 30, 2011, 5:32 pmchembal says:
So far I use it regularly for my (fairly heavy) ATV, and the bridge doesn’t seem to even notice. Some rough calculations I did while designing it showed that it should support at least a light passenger truck, but I haven’t tried it yet, mainly because the steep hill on the other side of the bridge is too steep and muddy for anything but my ATV! The basic design is a classic Pratt Truss bridge, so I think the concept is solid, but I’m not a structural engineer and I’d definitely recommend consulting one before putting anything into regular heavy service. That being said, I would think I’ve grossly over-engineered the bridge for the light duty I am using it for!
June 2, 2011, 3:57 pm